I think people equate power to move loudspeakers with power to move an automobile or bicycle or what have you. It's not the same. With the latter, you *do* need more power when you have to push more of them around because of frictional and viscous losses in their motion. But loudspeakers don't suffer from the same mechanisms - you can put 1 watt into one loudspeaker or a microwatt (a millionth of a watt) into 1 million loudspeakers, and it won't matter: the cones will still move a tiny amount, but multiply that by 1 million, and you have a sound that's probably significantly louder than the 1 watt into one speaker.
- Mike

In my case, I have an amp that puts out 900 watts into a cab that handles 600. Technically, this amp could really "put the hurt on" my cab, but Id have to turn it up really high for that to happen. 600 watts makes for a lot of volume, and I usually dont have to turn my amp up that high for it to be overpowering my cab.

Originally posted by lo-end yes, but you need to turn up your amp so its pretty loud to do that.

In my case, I have an amp that puts out 900 watts into a cab that handles 600. Technically, this amp could really "put the hurt on" my cab, but Id have to turn it up really high for that to happen. 600 watts makes for a lot of volume, and I usually dont have to turn my amp up that high for it to be overpowering my cab.

This is whats known as "having good headroom."

Click to expand...

So technically, I could build the ultimate rig with head room; a Carvin 4000 watt amp with a 50 watt 8 inch cab?

yeah i got a lot of warnings from morons at local shops about running by GK800 (at only about 200 watts at 8ohms) to my Bag End 4x0 (800 watts at 8ohms) and havent found any problems with it. I am even thinking about adding a 15 to add some more lows and run it full range so i get the full 300watts of power.